Today, while waiting for a load in our Portland yard, I finished the rewrite of the last chapter of Tim and the Corsair. I wish I could share with you want I wrote, but I can't spoil your own experience with the story.

I think I achieved a high degree of poignancy, though.

I think I reached a closing for all the necessary characters.

I think I came to a point where THE END fit into the story.

In the first version, on Nifty if you care to read it, Tim and Geoff don't meet until late in life.

In this revised version, I wanted Tim and Geoff to meet while Geoff was still in high school.

I think I rearranged their lives in a logical manner to make this possible.

Unfortunately, I had to dramatically affect Geoff's life to the point where suicide once again seemed like a logical solution to his problems.

Tim, well, he simply needed a way to get back to North Park to meet up with Geoff.

I wish I could tell you how it all came together, but I can't. You'll just have to wait.

Tim and the Corsair ends at Chapter 20 with this sentence: I took him in my arms and kissed him as if there was no one around.

I wish I could tell you where they were kissing. I wish I could tell you who was kissing Geoff. We know it was Geoff because the story is written in first person, but you'll have to wait to find out if it was Tim who was being kissed.

I think the last scene was poignant.

I wanted it to be poignant.

I'll have to wait to see what you think.

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My next story will aim for a poignant ending, too. I've decided the main character will not be developmentally disabled, but will have survived meningitis. Kevin (I like the name Kevin as it sounds vulnerable. It's a good name for a victim; and, in a sense Kevin will be a victim, even though he will kill at least four times.) will have had meningitis at some pre-teen age and he will have significant injury to cognitive abilities wherein his mental age will be somewhere around eleven, but he will excel at certain physical abilities which will play into the hands of those who will control his life. As I see it, at this moment, Kevin will die from colon cancer somewhere around age sixty-five or seventy. So you see I'm looking at a story that will traverse many years of one person's life. I'd like to be able to have the ending literally soaked in tears. I'd also like to be able to have the reader laugh at inapprorpriate times.